This Justice Department is product of the Karl Rove era: every last tendril of executive power has been transformed into an election campaign instrument. Now the DoJ’s primary role is to make Democrats look bad, and to enable Republican criminal enterprises. Remember one of the eight dismissals being investigated is that of Carol Lam, who oversaw the right and proper conviction of Randall “Duke” Cunningham, truly one of the Delay congress’ most vile scumbags.

But the common thread of all eight firings has to do with a prosecutorial priority I had hoped former AG John Ashcroft took with him when he left: prudery. All eight attorneys weren’t responsive enough when pushed to prosecute legal pornography on obscenity charges. Gonzales made porn-busting a “top priority” when he took Ashcroft’s job. The pressure, and ensuing complaints, came from the administration’s “porn czar” Brent Ward. Ward’s pinnacle career achievement was fining the dork behind “Girls Gone Wild.” A paragon of misplaced priorities, Ward and the agenda he epitomizes seem to think that porn featuring consenting adults is more a threat to the nation than, say, terrorism, murder or even child prostitution. He once—this is true—tried to force art school models in Utah to wear bikinis. Ward tops my personal list of Bush administration members most likely to have a naked twelve-year-old chained to a radiator at home—and it’s a pretty long list.

I really don’t know which possible motive in the firings is worse—that the DoJ hierarchy is as cravenly political and power-driven as, the people they work for, or that it is driven by sexually repressed puritanical zealots intent on preventing law-abiding citizens from achieving orgasm. More likely, it’s a confluence of such factors—investigating Bush’s buddies, refusing to bring weak cases against his political enemies in time to hurt their election bids, and generally being sensible about wasting resources on small-time pot cases or a tight-assed campaign of mental hygiene—that led to a perception that these eight attorneys were not sufficiently “Bushy.” But the point is, either way, they are lying about it, and not even very well. I don’t see why anyone who isn’t directly involved would support such bullshit, regardless of their feelings about taxes or stem cells.

The common theme between the Pelosi hysteria and the dismissive response to the DoJ firings, leaving out a few thousand other examples from the past six years, is aggressive, willful dishonesty, not just from the politicians, which is to be expected, but from ostensibly neutral media figures, and consequently regular people. These issues are simple, and wouldn’t take long to argue out, if news people felt in any way obliged to make sense. For instance, the Pelosi debate would go something like this:

Conservative: Nancy Pelosi wore a headscarf! This is a clear message of submission to Islamic extremists!

Reasonable Interviewer: But Laura Bush, Condoleezza Rice and many others have worn the same garment in similar situations.

Conservative: Oh. Well, still, she went on a diplomatic mission against the will of the president! This clearly violates the centuries-old, never utilized Logan Act! She must be prosecuted!

Reasonable Interviewer: But Newt Gingrich and Dennis Hastert have both done the same thing. In fact, unlike Pelosi, they actively controverted the president’s stated policies during those visits. Besides, several Republicans also visited Syria in the same week as Pelosi.

Conservative: All right, well, then… but Pelosi misrepresented the Israeli Prime Minister! She said Olmert was ready to begin peace talks, but she didn’t relay his insistence that they stop funding terrorists!

Reasonable Interviewer: Actually, that’s not true. Pelosi did predicate that message on that condition, as she and others in her delegation have stated. But the jerk-offs at the Washington Post failed to mention it in their editorial, despite the fact that it was reported in the very same paper on the same day.

Conservative: Oh. Well, never mind then! Sorry to bother you.

Instead, we are incessantly barraged with flatly ignorant and unfair accusations that have already been thoroughly debunked. And as every day passes, it becomes more obvious that this isn’t due to a stunning lack of research. It’s a willful ignorance of basic facts. It’s intellectual dishonesty elevated to an art. It may be helping the Republicans, but, as it is applied to all matters of government, from the trivial to the profoundly serious, it’s destroying the country. You can’t run the world when you won’t allow yourself even to look at it.